I couldn’t resist the white Essential PH-1. That was the one I originally pre-ordered, but cancelled when it became obvious it was going to be quite delayed. For $250, it was totally worth picking up, to hang onto my original black one as a backup (or perhaps bribe my daughter with).

Is the Fire Tablet 8″ 2016 the same as what is being sold on Amazon? I paid $50 for one, but now Woot as refurbs (2016) for only $30. Normally Amazon refurbs are pretty solid, so I have buyers remorse now if they are the same hardware.

I guess I will probably just keep the tablet since it already arrived. I hate doing Amazon returns because I read stories of people being banned for too many returns. haha Also the new one is blue, and if I bought the refurb it would be black, though I am not too concerned about the color.

Spurred by this, I dug my Fire 7 2015/5th gen version tablet out of the drawer today, and ran it thru the dozen or so system updates that had accumulated and needed to be installed.

When all was said and done, it was still on OS 5.6.1.0. dated early April 2018. And although it had an updated version of the Alexa app that now appears to support voice calling and messages via Alexa, the core Alexa trigger on the tablet still had to be by Home button press and hold, not by voice command only.

In short, Amazon has never updated the older Fire tablets to incorporate the hands-free Alexa voice command only capability that they started with the 2017 models.

Grabbed an Anker Soundcore Flare for $34.99. There was a Lightning Deal for $44.99 and I had a $10 credit from Whole Foods. I had bought one of these earlier in the week on the same Lightning Deal and really liked it. You can pair two of them and assign right/left channels, so wanted to get a second.

Also grabbed a 4-pack of Hue A19 white bulbs for $39.99.

Anker Powercore 10000 for $19.19.

Pretty quiet Prime Day for me. Did manage to help a bunch of friends find things they were shopping for though.

Waiting all day to see if the Kindle Oasis was going on sale, never happened, but if you trade a used kindle in, you get 25 % off, and a 25.00 coupon, so the Oasis is selling for 249.00, take 62.50 off and use the trade in, I’m getting this for 161.50, not bad.

Update: Just bought a Philips Hue White/Color Ambiance Kit (2 Bulbs + Bridge) through Alexa for $60 minus the $5 credit from yesterday minus $10 for changing one click to Discover. Seems like $22.50 per bulb is a decent price never mind the hub.

You reminded me I also got a Dash Button for Milk Bones. Basically pays you $4 to use it ($0.99 to buy and still get $5 off first order). Every year I get one of those $0.99 Dash Buttons and use it once.

50″ Toshiba fire TV edition. First 4k set. Now, to see what my 4K AppleTV and Roku Ultra can do with more than 1080P. At times I would have jumped on the Shield for 139.99, but found myself not tempted this time. My 1080P Insignia TV is eight years old now, so it was time to make the move.

Nvidia shield offer on EBay, just $5 more than the lightning deal on Amazon (after tax). Not a gamer but I can easily sell the controller for $40. Soooo..just how long was that lightning deal active…60sec?

I bought most of the food deals and freezer bags, along with a few of the 20% extra savings warehouse deals for throw pillows for about $2.77 each. Almost bought the Fire Cube, but I really want on-board storage with a flash drive or sd card. I still use my Gen1 Fire TV with a flash drive and it plays 720p x265 files perfectly. Just want to go to 4k but the new models don’t have that capability yet without me leaving a NAS on all the time or going to another room to turn it on each time. oh, and no-rush shipping on most items… wait, also a few Dash Buttons that I didn’t see noted here for 99c each.

If your router has USB ports, you can create a simple NAS by plugging in a usb plug/drive. My Archer C5400 has two USB ports, and I have two drives plugged in that I can access from my PCs and streaming boxes.

Great idea, but my router has a single port that I do use for a backup drive from our laptops. Your suggestion has me thinking of getting a new router in the future and doing that though. I think the flash drive plugged into the router doesn’t need to be Fat32 either so that would be helpful. I think black friday will be my time to update it. I also have an Archer router… weird it has just one port though. thanks!

Honestly, it is the main reason I have not gone to a mesh wifi system yet. I like having my two quasi-nas drives via my router, and most mesh systems do not have usb ports, at least that can be used for hard drives.

I also bought two refurb WD My Cloud Mirror NAS that plug into my router via ethernet. They are silent, and generate little heat. I also have them configured to only turn on from like 4pm-10pm, then go back to sleep. So they don’t use much electricity, etc.. They give me raided back.

another thing… I have the backup drive on a switched power strip so I just flip that switch when I want to use it… it’s that method I wanted to avoid for using with the fire tv. So your flash drive into a second port on the router would work perfect for me I think, as long as it isn’t powering the flash drive 24/7 so it heats up and dies each year.

I am one of the few who don’t buy online. In the past, I’ve used Prime Day and other Amazon sales to get items at Best Buy, Staples, or Target where those stores invariably matched Amazon’s prices to the penny and for the exact time period for Amazon’s own products, i.e. Kindles, tablets etc.

For the first time in memory, none of those stores price matched any of the items I was looking for, mainly the Fire HD 10. They didn’t change their prices at all. I wonder what prompted the change.